OTTAWA — Canada’s main survey on job openings across the country is often unreliable and regularly does not provide an accurate employment picture for governments and the private sector, the federal auditor general says in a new report on Statistics Canada.

The federal government has already come under fire for relying on what opposition parties say is sketchy data about the jobs market in Canada. The Conservatives, until recently, had been using job vacancy information from online classified websites such as Kijiji to help identify labour needs and whether temporary foreign workers were required in certain sectors.

In an examination of Statistics Canada surveys released Tuesday, Auditor General Michael Ferguson said governments and the private sector are regularly unable to access important economic and demographic information on small geographic areas and certain sections of the population.

The end result is that various governments and groups can’t always get an accurate employment picture in certain cities and regions of the country, while some communities may not receive the programs and services they need.

Statistics Canada’s Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours is only released at the national, provincial and territorial levels — which means there is only limited information on job vacancies for small geographic areas, the auditor says in his report.

“For (job) vacancies reported at the national, provincial and territorial level, it is not possible to determine where in a province or territory these job vacancies are located,” the report says. “For example, reported job vacancies in Alberta could be in Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, or any other community in the province.”

Also, the survey only provides limited classification of workplaces but not the types of specific jobs.

Federal and provincial ministers released a report in 2009 on the need for local data on job vacancies by both occupation and location. The agency eventually added two new questions to the survey in 2011, yet the data is still of little use to many people.

“Users informed us that as a result of these shortcomings, available information on job vacancies is of limited value to them,” the report says.

The auditor general reviewed four main Statistics Canada products, including: the monthly Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours; monthly Consumer Price Index, which measures the changes in cost of living in Canada; the monthly Labour Force Survey on labour market activities and demographics of working Canadians; and the 2011 voluntary National Household Survey, which replaced the mandatory long-form census.

“We found that needs for data from small geographic areas and small subpopulations in specific locations are not being met,” the auditor general wrote in his report.

The federal government has launched a major review of how Statistics Canada collects its data, because the Conservatives say multiple federal departments are often gathering the same information. The government is planning to cut Statistics Canada funding by $21 million in the 2014-15 budget year.

“Bad data creates bad policy and the Conservatives defended their expansion of the temporary foreign worker program claiming job shortages.”

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said shoddy data being collected by government may be why the Conservatives have been relying on Kijiji for information on Canadian employment trends. He called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to have the auditor general investigate the temporary foreign worker program.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney maintained there are no general labour shortages in Canada, but there are some skills gaps in certain regions and industries.

Overall, Ferguson said Statistics Canada generally provides accurate, timely and accessible data for Canadians, and does so efficiently.

“It’s not a question of resources. It (Statistics Canada) is very efficient with the use of its resources,” Treasury Board president Tony Clement told reporters Tuesday.

But the auditor general also identified the voluntary National Household Survey (NHS) as problematic in producing reliable data for smaller communities.

The Conservative government cancelled the mandatory long-form survey and replaced it with the 2011 NHS. With the 2011 NHS, Statistics Canada withheld survey data for 1,128 of 4,567 (25 per cent) of census subdivisions “due to quality concerns,” the report notes.

“Potential users of this data for approximately 25 per cent of geographic areas do not have reliable National Household Survey data available for their use,” the report says.

Senior Parliament Hill reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, politics junkie, wannabe pro golfer and someone who has wordsmithed at newspapers in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. I've covered politics at... read more every level, including city hall in Ottawa and Calgary, the Alberta legislature in Edmonton and now back in Ottawa covering the Hill.View author's profile